Research update from Dr. Richard Kim

In this spring issue of the  Department of Medicine newsletter, I want to share with you our Department’s continuing and remarkable success at peer review grant competition. The quality and calibre of our research excellence are evident in the nearly$4 million researchers received in new CIHR funding during the fall 2021 CIHR Project and Team Grant competitions.

We also held our DoM Research Competition during summer 2021. The focus was to provide research funding support for our faculty members that will then enable their program of research for funding success at the national level. Our Department provided a total of about $400,000 to support five top-ranking applications in 2021.

Shown below is the list of our DoM faculty members who are Principal Investigator (PI) or Nominated Principal Investigator (NPI) for funded grants during the DoM research competition, as well the Fall 2021 AMOSO, CIHR, and other peer-reviewed grant competitions.

1. DOM Research Competition 2021

  • PI: Jaspreet Bhangu, Measurement of cerebral perfusion in older adults with cognitive impairment: A sub-study of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), $100,000 for 2 years
  • PI: Kristin Clemens, Denosumab for the prevention of fragility fractures in hemodialysis: a pilot study for an innovative, randomized-controlled trial, embedded in routine care (PREFERRED-1), $77, 143 for 2 years
  • PI: Habib Khan, Resynchronization in patients with Atrial Fibrillation Trial undergoing AV junction Ablation & Pace with Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy versus Left Bundle Area Pacing RAFT-A&P, $69,934 for 2 years
  • PI: Reena Khanna, Determination of the Impact of Immune Signaling in Ulcerative Colitis Following Administration of Biologic Therapy, $100,000 for 2 years
  • PI: Sanjay Mehta, Defining the immunobiology of sepsis and the impact on organ dysfunction for the identification of future therapeutic directions, $50,000 for 1 year

2. AMOSO Funds: Fall 2021

i) Opportunities Fund

  • PI: Sarah Blissett, An Innovative, Virtual, Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Cardio-Obstetrics Education, $97,500 for 3 years

ii) Innovation Fund

  • PI: Amit Garg, High-throughput computing to improve prescription-drug safety in older adults, $96,000 for 2 Years
  • PI: Richard Kim, Personalized proton pump inhibitor (PPI) dosing for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), $106,892 for 2 Years
  • PIs: Geoff Pickering and Michael Chu, Medication Determinants of Ascending Aortic Aneurysm Structural Risk, $149,510 for 2 years

3. CIHR Project and Team Grants: Fall 2021

  • PI: Richard B Kim, CIHR Project Grant, Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptide (OATP), P-glycoprotein (Pgp), and Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP) transporters modulate tamoxifen response during breast cancer therapy, $657,900 for 5 years
  • PIs: Richard B Kim (NPI), Glenn Bauman, Amit Garg, Ute Schwarz, Rommel Tirona, Stephen Welch, Eric Winquist, Yun-Hee Choi, Sisira Sarma, David Barrett, and Mark Levine, as well as Martie Grof-Iannelli and Bronagh Morgan, Integrated Precision Medicine Technology and Approach for Optimal Drug Therapy for Canadians, CIHR Team Grant in Personalized Health, $1,995,001 over 4 years
  • PI: Tianqing Peng, CIHR Project Grant, Preventing organ failure in sepsis by NAD(+) repletion: mechanistic insights and therapeutic potential, $711,450 for 5 years
  • PI: Geoffrey J. Pickering, CIHR Project Grant, Smooth muscle cell diversity and thoracic aorta vulnerability, $852,975 for 5 years

4. Other grants: Fall 2021

  • PI: Richard B Kim, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) Clinical Translation Pathway, Patient-specific prediction of fluoropyrimidine dose and toxicity risk based on circulating micro RNA and NextGen exome sequencing coupled to functional validation in vitro and in vivo, $745,543, 3 years
  • PI: Manuel Montero-Odasso, Weston Family Foundation awarded Manuel and his team a grant from their Brain Health: Lifestyle Approaches and Microbiome Contributions 2021 program, SYNERGIC 2. A Home-based RCT from the Canadian Therapeutic Platform for Multidomain Interventions to Prevent Dementia (CAN-Thumbs UP), $1,497,758 over 3 years
  • PI: Tom Appleton, CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) infrastructure project, Integrated Molecular and Spatial Profiling for Complex Chronic Diseases, $531,362
  • PI: Tianqing Peng, LHRI IRF Pilot Study, Targeting DDIT3-mediated necroptosis as a new strategy to project cardiomyocytes under stress, $15,000, 2 years
I would also like to congratulate Dr. Amit Garg on his appointment as Associate Dean, Clinical Research and Dr. Lakshman Gunaratnam who was selected as Dr. Robert Zhong Chair in Translational Transplant Research.

In addition, I would like to thank all of you for your support for the Department’s research activities and the Program of Experimental Medicine (POEM) during the past decade. I will be stepping down as Associate Chair for Research and Director for POEM at the end of this academic year (2021/2022). I am looking forward to focusing more of my time on my program of research in personalized medicine. As always, I take great pride in our faculty members who have not only provided outstanding patient care and medical education but also serve as a role model for unbridled research excellence.

Richard B. Kim, MD, FRCPC
Associate Chair, Research
Department of Medicine